HEAVY HAULIERS' SUCCESSFUL YEAR
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A NUMBER of important and success4-1 ful proposals have been made on behalf of the heavy haulage and machinery carriers' group of the Road Haulage Association in the past year, for changes in existing or proposed legislation, states the chairman's annual report.
Successful submissions to the Ministry of Transport concerning changes in the Special Types Order and the Construction and Use Regulations have enabled heavy haulage vehicles to continue the work they carried out prior to the new regulations, and amendments have permitted the continued full employment of vehicles (in particular of the numerous four-axle artics for indivisible loads) even where a normal C. and U. vehicle of a different kind is permitted to .undertake the work.
With other bodies, the group asked the Ministry to amend section 72 of the Road
Traffic Act 1960 to permit a locomotive to be used without a second man, except when it was steam powered. Mobile cranes are generally classified as locomotives and section 72 has been duty amended to permit one-man operation of these.
Since the introduction of the Special Types General Order 1962-3 the group has been pressing for amendment of the Form of Indemnity whose wording made the signatory responsible for damage to the highway even when caused by the negligence of drivers of other vehicles. Last December a special meeting at the Ministry discussed this, and the Ministry has undertaken to include in the Special Types Order in the near future a proviso which reads: "except to the extent that the damage was caused or contributed to by the negligence of the driver of he other vehicle."